Awesome show, despite a really terrible turnout. The show was moved from Oakland to Santa Clara the week before, not to mention that it was on a Wednesday night. Even the promoter came onstage before Onslaught went on to apologize for screwing up his job.

Hatchet always give a fun show, and they're the coolest people that you could meet. Hell, before the show, half the band and their girlfriends plus me and my friends all kicked it in their van for a solid half an hour or so. Sadly, practically no one was there for their set. The older folks just hung around the back while there were maybe ten people on the floor for them. Still a fun set though! My buddies Julz and Clark, the guitarists of the band, told me that their second album is almost fully recorded and that it'll be coming out this year.

EvilDead were a good bit of fun as well. Their stage presence was okay, but the music was great. There was a little bit of moshing going on with me and my friends, but other than that the "crowd" was pretty dead. Again, a good set.

Holy crap Mpire of Evil was awesome. Dolan was energetic as hell and his voice seriously hasn't lost anything over the years. Mantas is now a total guitar hero in my book, he was absolutely insane during this set. Both him and Dolan were all over the stage, and constantly having fun with the audience. The two even hung out for a bit after the set to sign stuff and talk to fans - very cool on their part. Witching Hour in particular was absolutely mind blowing, hearing it without crappy production, way faster drums and a tight guitar performance was plain awesome. I'm pretty sure some songs were cut, but the fans demanded one more song literally as soon as they were done, so they played Black Metal. The new songs they played sounded really sick. Metal Messiah in particular had a great reception by the couple dozen or so people on the floor.

Onslaught were badass as expected. They weren't as purely amazing as Mpire of Evil, but the set was lots of fun, and the songs sounded brutal as hell. There were still the same couple dozen people or so on the floor, and a scattering of older folk hanging near the bar. The band said they'd be back next year with a new album, which astounds me if they really are getting consistently bad turnouts on this tour. The new songs sounded the best to me, they are way heavier than the old stuff. Still though, pretty much every song played was way fun, and tons of mini-pits cropped up throughout the set. The Bay may have disappointed me with this turnout, but I'll be damned if we don't know how to have fun at a thrash show. Literally the second the band started to put their instruments down, the few of us that were there started chanting the band's name and they soon came back for an encore. Sy and the rest of the band had a great attitude about the poor showing, constantly thanking the audience for coming out, and telling us to let our friends know that they missed out on awesome night of music. (I certainly would if all my bay area metal friends weren't already there )

Despite the horrible turnout, this show was still awesome. Every performance was great, and I got to hang with friends I hadn't seen in forever. Like the promoter said, "don't think of this as an empty show, but rather an intimate evening of music just for you guys." Even though the guy was just trying to save his ass, he was right - we did get an intimate performance, and it was an insanely good time. If you have the opportunity, get your ass to this tour, you won't regret it, and by the looks of things, every additional audience member counts on this tour.

I'm wearing that particular Onslaught shirt right now. I thought it was way too hilarious and tongue in cheek to not pick up. I also wanted to support the guys at least a little bit, although a friend of mine who ran merch for the night said she sold $500 worth of merch for Onslaught alone. I have no idea how that was even possible considering there couldn't have been more than 40 or 50 people there!